Television’s most social show: ‘SpongeBob’

Yes, the little yellow sponge topped an impressive list of shows during 2012 to become the most-talked-about program on social media, which begs the question: Are 5-year-olds logging onto Twitter?

Nickelodeon’s cartoon received 21.77 million mentions, according to a year-end list released by Trendrr, which tracks social activity across Twitter, Facebook, GetGlue and Viggle.

That was significantly ahead of the No. 2 show, Fox’s “The X Factor,” which got 16.6 million mentions.

“SpongeBob” does have one advantage over broadcast shows, and that’s the frequency that it’s on the air. Nick plays at least four episodes of the program every day on its flagship channel, and it’s on many more across its other networks.

So at just about any time of day, a “SpongeBob” cartoon might catch a person’s attention, while “Factor” is limited to twice per week.